The delivery of Cara’s work is overseen by the Executive Director, with the support of the Deputy Director, Programme Officers and Assistants, Interns and Volunteers.

Stephen has been Executive Director of the Council for At-Risk Academics since 2012. He is also Deputy Chair of the New York-based Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, a grouping of UN agencies and NGOs which works to protect schoolchildren, university students and teachers from conflict, instability and repression; and a Trustee of the British and Foreign School Society, a UK educational charity which funds projects worldwide, and of the Slynn Foundation, a UK charity which works with senior judges and justice institutions around the world to improve justice systems and the rule of law, and to enhance professional understanding of human rights, mediation and European Union law and practice.

Before joining Cara, Stephen was a career member of the UK Diplomatic Service, where his last two posts were as Deputy Head of Mission in Moscow (2003-2005) and British Ambassador in Belgrade (2006-2010). He had previously served abroad in Moscow during the Soviet period (1979-81), in Nigeria (1983-86), in Germany during unification (1990-1994) and at NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium (1994-1998) during the Bosnia operation and the development of NATO’s ‘Partnership for Peace’. He originally graduated in Modern Languages (German and Russian) from the University of Cambridge. He holds an Honorary Doctorate of Liberal Arts from the University of Abertay Dundee, the UK awards of Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO, 1992) and Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG, 2011), and the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Martin previously led the development and fundraising teams at St David’s Medical Foundation (Swansea University), Liverpool John Moores University and St Mary’s University College, and worked as Partnerships Manager at The Clare Foundation before joining Cara in autumn 2016.

"When I arrived in England in 1966, after months of solitary confinement in apartheid jails, I was a psychological wreck. You gave me wonderfully sensitive support. When I arrived in 1988, having been blown up by a bomb placed by apartheid operatives, I was a physical wreck. Once again Cara was there to help me..."